He's kidding, of course, but he's very serious
about what he says has been a musical and spiritual transformation, so much so that he doesn't want to be known as Snoop
Dogg anymore -- he prefers Snoop Lion.

He was born Calvin Broadus in Long
Beach, Calif. The story goes he was
nicknamed Snoop because he looked like Snoopy from the Charles Schultz
cartoon.

Truth is, he doesn't know where he got the
name came from, but his was hardly a Peanuts upbringing.

When he first burst on the
scene, Snoop Dogg's music spoke of his crime-ridden neighborhood in poetic, but
often vivid detail -- so much so, critics argued he glorified the gangster
lifestyle.

He joined a gang, sold crack, went to
jail. Was even charged with murder at one point, but later acquitted.

Through it all, though, his fan
base only grew. Rolling Stone even once dubbed Snoop "America's
Most Loveable Pimp."

"You know, I don't have no
regrets about what I did, 'cause I did it to the fullest," he said. "But
as you get older, you get wiser, and now that I'm wiser, I want to give, you
know, some light to the situation and give them another avenue, or another door to
walk through."

His single "No Guns Allowed"
is a musical about-face:

Let the music play,me don't want no more gunplayWhen the bodies hit the ground,There's nothing left to say, ay, ayMe don't want to see no more innocent
blood shed,Me don't want to see no more youth
dead.Come hear me now.

"I'm so sick and tired of all
this violence, this gun violence," said Dogg. "And how could I speak
on it, you know, being one who has advocated violence and gun violence? And the
only way I could do it was through a song that spoke from the heart."

"I wanted a football league to
cater to the friends and the people that came from the communities I came
from," he told Cowan. "It just seemed like no football league was
catering to the inner city."

He actually coaches one of the teams
himself. "On the ball, on the ball, let's go! On the ball!"

And it's not just for boys; there's a
program for cheerleading, too.

It's already showing some big-league
dividends. Last year, one of Snoop's alums, Ronnie Hillman, was drafted by the
Denver Broncos. He's going to the Super Bowl next Sunday.

Cowan asked, "Is it different
having the kids look up to you as a coach as opposed to a rap star?"

"It's better," he replied.
"Because they don't care about my flaws. You know, as a rapper they bring
up my flaws -- when I went to jail, I was an ex-drug dealer, whatever ex- I
was, it would seem to linger.

"But when it comes to football,
they don't care about the ex-, they care about what's right now."

James Maae, who goes by "Chubba,"
is one of Snoop's star linemen. He told Cowan it was not at all strange to have
Snoop Dogg coach his team. "I just think of him as a regular coach,"
he said.

Chubba's mom, Taape, says she's happy
to accept Snoop's outreach to the community. No reason to turn her back on it,
she figures, just because of his past.

"Just to see this side of him is
different, it's a good different, you know?" she said.

Cowan asked Snoop, "How do you
square your past life -- dealing drugs, and still smoking a lot -- with
coaching kids?"

"It's easy!" Snoop replied.
"I don't go to practice doing it. I don't do it in front of them. They
don't never see it. When I'm Coach Snoop, that's what they get. They get the
coach."

He admits he hasn't lost all his
"Snoop-ness." His mini-fleet of custom Cadillacs can still make quite
an entrance.

"This is my '69 Cadillac
Fleetwood 'Snoop de Ville,'" he laughed, "with the chandeliers in the interior to make you
feel like you're at Grandma's house!"

At 42, a father of three and married now almost 20 years, Snoop has plenty of places to arrive in style. A few weeks ago
he was even playing the Kennedy Center, with the President and First Lady
looking on.

"I snuck a peek, I looked up top,
and seen him having a good time," Snoop said, "so it let me know that
I was in the right place, and I was in the right spirit, and the right mind, so
I continue to do what I normally do."

At the White House, a chat with
Secretary of State John Kerry ended with a fist bump -- and later, a chance to
talk one-on-one with the First Family.

What did he say to the president? "Oh, that's personal man, you know, we
shared a few tics, you understand me? But that was some personal. I don't want
to discuss that right now. But it was, it was brilliant."

If the reincarnated Snoop hasn't
pleased everyone, that's probably no surprise. His fellow gang bangers, for example, don't
always take to the "new" Snoop.

But in that, he says, there's a lesson.

"A lot of my friends thought I
was weak when I had seen the light," Snoop said. "But, what I was
told, if you ain't losing friends, you ain't growing up.